Import/Specialist games shops in your Area

[Duddyroar]

Is KC's still going?

Nah mate, the original store closed in the early 90's, it was reborn as 'Jive Consoles' but that's gone now too.

Did you shop there?

[2FreshRecords]

Nah mate, the original store closed in the early 90's, it was reborn as 'Jive Consoles' but that's gone now too.

Did you shop there?

Nah just remember the adds ins games mags

[son_of_bael]

Game Focus on Goodge St is fairly new (opened about 2 years ago I think). Upstairs is PS2 and DVD's, but downstairs they have quite a bit of retro stuff, and some imports. Went there this afternoion actually, they had a JAP Garou for the Neo for ?200, NES GBA for ?60, and the DC Sega direct Chaos field for ?60. They are far better than CEX (they have *shock, horror* lighting! Who would have thought you would want to look at stuff.). And they have a candy cab with SVC and KOF 2003 in the basement.. Staff are friendly and know their stuff. They are a little pricy generally, but I've picked up a bargain or 2 there in the past. Worth checking out...

[rule]

Raven games is generally overpriced, videogamecentre is comical (?200 for a brand new mega cd they're having a laugh). Annoyingly the best place for retro is videogameimports.com they are reliable but they know their stuff so you won't find a bargin. I like to see what i'm buying in person but it's difficult, all the good indie shops near me have either closed down or turned **** (the one closest to me the new guy running it knows jack about games-selling unboxed ps1 games for a tenner, and sega bass fishing for ?15 and has a copy of xmen v sf on the ps1 for ?20 marked very rare).

Cex was once the best but since new management came in the retro section looks more like blockbusters, apparently their trying to phase out retro. Been to game focus and it's quite good.

Does anyone know any decent places that sell mvs and jamma cabs?

[wheelaa]

VGI may be ok..but the prices are a joke, everything seems to be described as mint (well ok the 2 items I have ever bought from there were described as mint..and clearly were far from it)..they seem to over hype the rarity of many items (scope out the md section)..and I have heard that some peeps have been screwed over in the past. Not one for me tbh.

[sj33]

There's nothing in Bristol. Nothing seriously.

But a CEX opened here recently... got all excited when I saw it and rushed in to check it out... ****in' terrible, it really was =/ Dont bother going in there now.

Sadly, GameStation is still the best place in Bristol, if that says anything... and even then, that's for their decently-sized retro collection. No imports.

[carbon boy]

I'm in the same neck of the woods as wheelaa so it's a pretty poor show down these sides I stick my head into CEX in Kingston every now and again but most of the stuff is of no interest to me... and the few PS2 games I've had out of there have been nothing but trouble either :/

[wheelaa]

I'm in the same neck of the woods as wheelaa so it's a pretty poor show down these sides I stick my head into CEX in Kingston every now and again but most of the stuff is of no interest to me... and the few PS2 games I've had out of there have been nothing but trouble either :/

OT..but a few peeps seem to be round this area..anyone fancy some brews one time..and some gaming

[carbon boy]

Sure. Could be a good laugh. We could do beer and gaming. That way I can blame my crap skills on the booze :laugh:

[SharkSkin-Man]

VGI may be ok..but the prices are a joke, everything seems to be described as mint (well ok the 2 items I have ever bought from there were described as mint..and clearly were far from it.

Agreed, they don't have a clue what the term 'mint' actually means.

[Duddyroar]

The days of decent importers/retro shops are long gone, the arrival of the internet means these stores simply cannot make money - when you're after rare or imported titles you simply log onto ebay (or whereever) and you can find what you want right away. Who wants to trawl round the country trying to find the same item for more money? It's nice to visit a decent importers every now and then but they're all overpriced compared to what you can find on the net. How can an importer with overheads (wages, import duty, shipping) compete with someone living in a flat in Japan packaging games up and shifting them on ebay (where the buyer pays for the shipping and import tax, if any)? They can't.

[wheelaa]

Actually I think they probably could if they conducted their business properly.

After all they should have solid contacts in the first place..if not don't set up a business. As such they should be, or should aim to be in a position where they can buy lots of quality goods in bulk at a preferential rate for theselves.

Then they should stop charging ridiculous prices for poor condition games. After all if they sold quality conditioned items they could reasonably charge a few quid more them, especially when the buyer factors in the lack of postage (ie get a game from japan for ?20 + P&P..well if the shop charged ?30 the buyer would think ok..30 with no P&P and immediate satisfaction etc..but the shops don't..they charge ?50!).

Also the ones near me do trades/part exchange/will buy your games...all for ridiculously low prices..and then resell the games for extortionate profit..which annoys people and is the classic case of the shops shooting themselves in the foot.

(In all fairness to gamesx in kingston..the dudes there are really friendly and you can always work out a deal with them...always..I've had a few killer buys in my time..plus if you can get stuff real cheap you can work out some really rather good deals tbh...I traded a few sealed saturn games that cost me peanuts for a brand new tribal sp and 4 games for it)

Edit - plus there are lots of casual retroheads who turn these places a tidy profit as it is..so perhaps they don't really care that much

[Duddyroar]

Sorry mate but I don't agree. There are simply not enough importers/retro gamers out there to keep these places going. It was a different story back in the region lock-free days of the MD, there were places selling imported stuff all over the place because the market was there - casual, PAL-owing MD players would buy imported stuff not because it was imported - but because it worked on their machines. There were no barriers preventing them from playing. As soon as lockouts appeared the import market started to shrink as you had to buy converters or switch your machine to play imported software - the barriers started to appear and as soon as this happens then you lose customers.

Then the internet turned up and 'hardcore' importers stopped shopping in the high street and started ordering online where they could get games faster and cheaper.

Even stores like Another World and Gamestation stopped doing imports recently because they weren't selling. And price wasn't a factor as both stores were selling imported games for the same price as PAL games at one point, yet stuff still didn't shift.

On the subject of pricing, there's a reason stores charge more for imported games - they cost more than PAL games to start off with! You can't expect these stores to keep the prices low when they're shifting less stuff...you'd have to have quite a demand to get import prices low - and the demand ain't there. Plus you can't just say a game costs ?20 + postage, because if you order anything in bulk from abroad you will get charged import tax on top of that.

[carbon boy]

But don't we all agree that quality is a key issue. As was mentioned previously, you can still get imports from various high street stores but their understanding of the term 'MINT' - 'POOR' and the ground in between is dodgy at best. If I had access to a high street store where I could pick up a title, walk too the counter and pay for my item there and then, I wouldn't mind paying a premium.

I would avoid all the 'lost in post' scenarios, damage caused while posting, theft, dodgy ebay traders, conversion rates, PayPal scams etc etc... the list grows week on week. When you total all this up I bet that each of us could only name a few outlets that we could truly rely on to deliver the goods for our hard earned cash.

Personally I could only see the internet aiding a reputable importer. If I had the contacts I would certainly give it a bash.

[Geezer]

a copy of xmen v sf on the ps1 for ?20 marked very rare)

It's been a while since I looked but iirc the PAL versions of the Capcom Vs Fighters on the PS1 are hard to get hold of and were commanding ?30ish apeice not so long ago. I think the Japanese versions aren't particularly rare but are possibly harder to find than the Saturn versions.

EDIT-just checked, the price seems to have fallen, you can get them for ?10-?20 now.